Marketing 101

Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine has an article entitled ’20 for $20’ listing 20 restaurants that while inexpensive are a great value. The selections were made by asking “the chefs of tomorrow from local culinary schools where they eat when money's tight”. Their answer is, in effect, ‘Boston and Cambridge’. The 20 selections break down as follows:

Boston 10
Cambridge 6
Brookline 1
Newton 1
Quincy 1
Framingham 1
Total 20

Or:

Boston, neighboring cities 19
Other cities 1

Or:

Inside Route 128 19
Outside Route 128 1

With Globe circulation declining precariously, and with all the whining in the media about business values taking over from news values, the choices made for this article show that the Globe Magazine is oblivious not only to business values but to where its product is distributed and where its readers live. Do ¾ live in Boston and Cambridge? Do 95% live inside 128? Maybe they could take the big step of considering the reader’s viewpoint and provide readers with information that would be more actionable than a list of the latest cheap eats in Allston, Brighton, or Cambridge.